Contributor

I need advice on how social anxiety disorder should be coded. Per a psychiatrist I work with and the DSM-IV, social anxiety disorder and social phobia are the same thing. In the ICD-9 book under phobias "anxiety states not associated with a specific situation or object" are excluded from being coded as phobias. According to another coder I work with this means that if it's documented as "social anxiety disorder" you have to code it as 300.09 for other anxiety states, but per the doctor it is the same as social phobia and should be coded as 300.23.

Expert

You should code 300.06. If it is the same as social phobia, then doctor should document social phobia and then code 300.23.
You need to code based on what the documentation shows and it shows social anxiety.